First-off, I'm gonna say that my entire opinion refers to North America. If you live in Europe or elsewhere, chances are, like with video games, you are gonna get stuff years later than they should be released, most likely have the translation editted by the European licensor, and probably dubbed into other languages as well, then you'll be overcharged and left with a terrible product not worth paying money for in the first place, so I can't really say anything about that. You guys get screwed over with everything. Importing still adds extra fees and won't natively work with your hardware.
It's not like you're gonna be affecting the market I'm part of anyway, and my market is the one I'm concerned about. I don't think I need to point out how much more common piracy is outside the North American market.
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Originally Posted by Frein
I think the dub will be terrible (even the one in Haruhi, which you said sold well, was), but that's beside the point. I think dubbing Lucky Star is 100% unnecessary because only a relatively invested anime hobbyist will understand it anyway. It's a pure moe show, the main character of which is an otaku and much of the dialog is rather pointless rambling about our daily lives. It almost doesn't get more niche than that.
What's next, Kodomo no Jikan? That's not only niche, but also offensive.  |
I can't logically agree with this, as I've gotten into conversations with some of my European friends about this; they don't like the "accent" in American English dubs, so they dislike everything, where-as in a language they don't natively speak, accent means nothing to them, which is why they prefer Japanese with subtitles. How many times have you been bothered by character who speaks with a Kansai-ben? I'd imagine not often.
The Haruhi dub was fantastic to most American audiences. Hell, the Haruhi dub was CHOSEN by American audiences. They had 5 people casted for each main character, and allowed the fans to vote on the voice they liked best, without giving away the actor names. There was no way the dub could be in bad taste.
As for the "appeal" of Lucky Star, it isn't "moe" like you seem to think. Sure it has girls, but did people watch Azumanga Daioh because the characters were physically attractive? No, it was for the comedy. Genshiken succeeded MASSIVELY in America as a slow-paced, slice-of-life otaku comedic commentary, and Lucky Star is no different; it just has a mostly female cast.
Besides, there are few people less manly than Minoru Shiraishi and Anime Tenchou.
BTW Kodomo no Jikan's manga WAS licensed by a company called Seven Seas, but the project was aborted because they didn't want to sully their reputation with a lolicon controversy (seriously, we love them for bringing over the Boogiepop novels. They're great guys, so it was a good decision.)
Lucky Star however, isn't perverted, and is already popularized by the creators, Kyoto Animation so it really isn't as niche as you keep saying. Bandai is doing a great job at promoting the series as well, as they did with Haruhi.
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Originally Posted by Frein
Really? Hah, I didn't even know. But still, they aren't fast enough and need some kind of industry-wide collective contract that allows them to sub anything aired on certain channels and put it up there as soon as they can.
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You mean like how GONZO just started releasing two of their newest series' simultaneously world-wide, and for FREE at several streaming sites, with options to pay for direct-download high quality files?
I don't think this debate could've been held at a more convenient time. >_>
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Originally Posted by Frein
I tried looking up some prices for anime series here, but it was hard as most shops don't seem to have any, but then I found one shop advertise box sets containing the entire Silver Fang (Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin) and Weed series and both were 49,95€. Also, episodes 1-4 for FMA were sold for 12.95€.
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This goes back to my point about Europe. If nobody in Europe licenses the content, you're not gonna see it. If it is licensed, then a lot of extra adaptation is required, and prices shoot up as the work is done.
Here in North America, I can walk into a local video store and find a shelf stocked full with anime DVDs, and stop in to any Futureshop or Best Buy (there are 2 Futureshops and 1 Best Buy in my city) for tons of new releases, at prices I've mentioned before. From Tokyo Majin to Kanon to Karas, Naruto, Bleach, Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed and more. It's readily available here; heck this is Canada where prices are supposed to shoot up more and niche American markets never have a chance of appearing here.
Though given your last paragraph, you seem to know all of this already, I figured I should say what I've seen at least. =/
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Originally Posted by Howling
Craziest sentence of the year award goes to........
Most people, myself included, get introduced to all the animes through
Fansubs. Without the fansubs noone would know what the animes are and thus would have alot (alot) less incentive to pay through the nose for a DvD of a show they've never seen.
Take out fansubs - kill the industry, it's that simple. Only the über hardcore fans like you would buy something without watching it first |
That's not very true. It's all a matter of paying attention to advertising. Say you see a commercial for an anime, or see an episode of an anime on TV that catches your eye. You can then research it and see if it's worth looking into. Websites such as the AnimeNewsNetwork make this simple, with summaries and reviews of DVDs on the site. You buy a DVD, and whether or not you like it, you can continue following the series or sell the DVD. The disc will also typically have previews of other series' on it, giving you more ideas of things to look out for.
It's a matter of perspective. Are you gonna go to a theater to see a movie you haven't heard about or seen commercials for? Chances are you don't even know that the movie exists.
The only problem is that in this day in age, "Oh this looks neat" translates to "I wonder where I can download this..." because of how simple the process is. Even with movies, I suppose, but it also comes down to a matter of connection speed and availability of decent quality pirated copies, of which anime has got covered in multiple subtitled varieties...Not to mention that American TV and movies make money off of televised appearances, where-as anime licensors have to pay to get their content on the air, as it's seen as advertising for a specific media market. It's quite the opposite situation, which ends up giving rise to such DVD prices.
Sure, fansubs are easier to get as a preview for the content within a series, but that's just not how the industry is meant to work, is all. Without fansubs, it would still function; you'd just weed out all the people who don't care enough to do their own research...Those too used to having anime delivered right to their door for free. If you enjoy anime as much as you say you do, if you couldn't get fansubs, you would get the DVDs. If you're not sure what to get into, you'd learn to research.
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Originally Posted by Howling
I've heard in some of the euro countries its $60 for a single dvd - can't remember which country I'm thinking of, was talking to someone about it a few weeks ago and he said where he's from.. norway or something like that.. they're really expensive and it's alot cheaper to buy from UK and ship.. Dispite UK being reletively expensive (to America).
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Japan pays 50 bucks for 2 episodes per disc. I believe I've already said that North America really gets the good deals, and this post is home to why I think it's a different story if you're European.
I'm obviously not gonna be convincing any Europeans to go legal with any of my comments, but if you're gonna be commenting about the American market, then you shouldn't be betting with your price ranges as the chips.
I also apologize in advance in case I said anything with a negative stigma.